I recall in Kurt Vonnegut's _Sirens of Titan_ how people on Earth were handicapped, to counter their strengths. The most intelligent people had to wear earphones that constantly emitted annoying sounds so that it was harder for them to think clearly. That's very much like the way GLaDOS was handicapped in the Portal 2 backstory by attaching Wheatley to her--a personality core that was designed by the best scientists to be the worst possible idiot, to constantly feed her bad ideas.
The US educational system piles gratuitous additional work on the smartest students. Rather than just graduating, how about graduating while taking a bunch of AP or IB classes? The system accommodates them by digging additional official channels, rather than allowing them to become self-directed autodidacts or entrepreneurs.
I know that when I was a kid, I would have totally wasted any additional free time I may have had outside of classes, but it's very possible that some of my classmates in all the various "X" sections might have taken part-time jobs, or started low-capital businesses, or educated themselves on topics the school could never teach.
It's clear that the US educational system simply doesn't know how to handle high intelligence.
And why wouldn't they gravitate towards HN?
> self-proclaimed gifted HNers
Did you see how much tests for giftedness cost in the article? Do you really expect all these people to go out and get tested before feeling like they have permission to comment on an Internet forum about their experience?